Huawei plans to lay off hundreds of employees in the US

Chinese
technology company Huawei plans to lay off hundreds of employees in the United
States after its inclusion in the “blacklist.”

Layoffs are
expected to take place at Futurewei Technologies, a research and development
division of Huawei Technologies based in Silicon Valley.

Futurewei
research laboratories in the United States, including in Texas, California and
Washington state, employ 850 people. Overall, Huawei has about 1,500 employees
in the United States.

The exact
scale of the cuts is unknown. According to a WSJ source, hundreds of people
will lose their jobs.

In May, US
President Donald Trump signed a decree empowering the government to block
information and communications technology transactions that “pose an
unacceptable risk to the national security of the United States.”

Although
the decree does not mention specific countries or companies, officials and
industry representatives said that it probably targets Huawei and its Chinese
competitor ZTE Corp.

In
addition, the US Department of Commerce decided to add Huawei and related legal
entities to the “blacklist”, limiting their ability to buy services
and components from US firms.

Founder and
CEO of Huawei, Ren Zhengfei, said in June that due to the restrictive measures
imposed by the United States, the company would reduce its production capacity.
The revenue of the Chinese technology giant in the next two years could be reduced
by $ 30 billion relative to forecasts.

At the end
of June, the United States and China agreed to resume trade negotiations after
Trump offered concessions, including easing restrictions on Huawei.
The Trump administration announced that a ban on
the sale of its products by US companies to a Chinese manufacturer would be
applied only when it threatens national security. At the same time, US Commerce
Secretary Wilbur Ross said that Huawei will not be removed from the blacklist
and American firms will still have to receive a license to do business with a
Chinese company.